The Bias Slip

You dress on a single line. Shoulder seam on the bone, sleeve cut narrow, a hem that breaks once over a low heel and then stops arguing, and a shop assistant could put your whole outfit in a shoe box. The year that taught you this took the padding out, dropped the hemline to the floor, and made a silk slip the most expensive thing on the rail by removing everything from it.

It has aged better than any other year on this list. A bias cut skirt still hangs correctly on a body that has changed, the flat sandal still works in August, and the unpadded shoulder is the one proportion that has never once looked like a costume. You buy less than everyone you know and you replace almost nothing.

Here is the part you will not enjoy. Restraint stops being a decision after about the fifth year and turns into a way of not choosing, and your wardrobe has a slightly convalescent quality to it: sand, bone, ash, one navy. There is no colour in your closet you would have to defend at a dinner. The people who look best in 1997 were the ones wearing one loud thing with it.